


In Another Life

by TehRaincoat



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 16:14:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16836094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TehRaincoat/pseuds/TehRaincoat
Summary: Ursa flees the capital with her children the night that Azula tells her that Azulon plans to have Ozai murder Zuko...And that Ozai had not said no.





	In Another Life

**Author's Note:**

> "what if ursa took both her kids with her the day she vanished? what would their lives be like!!"

Azula glares down at the slop that she’s being forced to eat, pulling a face as she pushes the rude wooden bowl away across the table and crosses her arms over her chest.

“Azula, eat your breakfast.” Ursa’s voice is weary, long suffering at the hands of her daughter.

“I don’t _want_ this stuff again. We’ve had it every day for the last month! If we were _home_ then I wouldn’t have to eat the same stupid thing every day!”

“Ugghh!” Zuko sprawls himself out on the pillow beside her, looking exasperated, red in the face. “‘If we were back home’,” he mimics. “You know what else happens every day? you say that like a thousand times!”

Zuko glares at Azula.

“Can’t you give it a rest already,” he demands.

“Maybe if mom told us _why_ we’re out here in the middle of nowhere. Why we’re not allowed outside. Why we’re not allowed to practice fire bending or to go into town and at least look around!”

“That’s _enough_ , both of you! You’re giving me a headache,” Ursa says tightly. “It should be good enough that I said it must be so, young lady.”

“I want dad,” Azula grouses under her breath, hunching in on herself and hugging her knees to her chest.

“If you think you would have gotten any more out of him, then you don’t have an accurate picture of your father,” Ursa tells her daughter, brow drawing downward, “and he certainly wouldn’t be nearly so generous as I’m being about it.”

Azula stands sharply from the table, hands balled into fists at her sides.

“I hate it here! I hate that I have to spend every waking moment with you and Zuko! I want to go home! I want to eat fire flakes and sit at the turtle-duck pond and learn new fire bending moves! I wanna go home!”

A low growl of frustration emits from Ursa’s throat. Before she can say anything, however, the girl has turned on her heel and marched from the small main room of their cramped little house and back into the single bedroom that houses all three of their cots for sleeping on, crammed together to its very edges.

Azula slides down the wall of the bedroom, hugging her knees tightly to her chest, her breast hot and tight along with her face. She buries it in her knees.

“Mom…Why _aren’t_ we allowed outside?” Despite his low tones, Zuko’s voice drifts back to Azula where she has secluded herself. She hears their mother’s responding sigh.

“I know you’re old enough to understand that your dad wasn’t a nice man, Zuko.”

“I know.”

“…I took the two of you out from under him. I don’t want you to go outside or practice your fire bending because I am afraid that someone will see. I’m afraid that they will tell someone and news will reach back to Caldera and your father. I’m afraid he will find us.”

“…I don’t…Understand? What does that mean?”

“Your father and I — _I_ did something bad, my love. I took the two of you with me because I couldn’t bear to leave you behind, but it wasn’t your father’s wish that I leave with the two of you.”

“You disobeyed father?”

Azual feels the shock that is evident in Zuko’s voice. Her gold eyes widen, staring at the folds of her trousers while she remains hunched, frozen in place.

“It was to save you…And perhaps because I was being selfish, too.”

“Mom is…is what Azula said about dad to me…true?” Zuko’s voice is even quieter. Azula must strain to hear it.

There is silence following his question, and then the shifting of fabric as their mother stands, or Zuko. Azula can’t be certain. The silence remains.

Her chest heaving, the girl feels her knuckles beginning to ache with how hard she is holding onto her legs with her fingers. She loosens them, and the white splotches gradually dissipate while she watches.

Dad didn’t want them to go away. She should be at the palace right now. She should be home and happy. She should be allowed to practice fire bending and eat what she wants to eat and she should be enjoying father’s praise.

She should be a _princess_. Mother has made them into worse than commoners.

Silently, Azula stands once again, hesitating in place for only a moment before she’s crossed to the window that sits on the opposite side of the room. She slides open the shutters and climbs up the wall nimbly to the ledge, balancing there for a breath before she’s dropped to the ground outside.

She shakes out her leg after the landing, rolling her shoulders before she looks about herself at the secluded clearing that their mother has chosen to keep a home in. She looks up at the sun’s position in the sky. It’s East. The Fire Nation is West.

Azula turns West and plunges into the trees.

~

Coming to civilization takes a great deal longer than Azula had expected it to. She stumbles into the fringes of a town two hours’ jog and brisk walk later. Her stomach grumbles, twisting up painfully. She presses a small hand to it, mouth pulling into a thin, unhappy, line.

She should have eaten the slop before running away.

Azula wanders into the streets of the dingy town, looking around her with wide eyes. Her feet scrape the dirt road noisily but she pays them no mind. She also barely acknowledges the looks that she gets as she passes through the crowds of people that go about their business. There are more than a few stalls of food set up for the day.

She has no coin but that won’t stop her. What’s theirs is hers anyway.

The girl reaches up when she sees a ripe peach, taking it so casually that no one seems to take notice at all. She takes a large bite of the sweet flesh of the fruit. Juice sticks to her cheeks and dribbles down her delicate chin to drip on her tunic.

No matter. She’ll get a new one when she finally gets home. She wipes her face with a swipe of her sleeve.

Azula’s attention continues to be caught by the goings on around her. The town, despite being a backwater, is bustling with life. The people are so different in the Earth Kingdom to the Fire Nation, she thinks. Not nearly as clean. Not nearly as _noble_. They are certainly far beneath her; dust under her boots.

“Hey, kid!” A large hand takes hold of her, locking over Azula’s arm and dragging her backward.

“Ow! Let go!” She tries to wrench free. He squeezes tighter, a tower of muscle above her.

“You look familiar. Where’s your parents?”

“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” she answers curtly, “my parents are at a fruit stand let go of me!”

“Az — Aiko!”

Azula’s head snaps around at the familiar voice. Zuko. She scowls at him deeply, but the man that’s caught her is squeezing her wrist so hard that her hand has begun to tingle. She needs to get away now.

“See? that’s my brother!”

She trips over herself when the man lets go. Azula falls hard into the dirt of the road, her peach gone and now inedible. Zuko’s hands are on her a moment later, helping her up from the ground, brushing her off. He looks suitably furious with the strange man who’d taken hold of Azula.

“Why don’t you mind your own business,” he asks of the man, venomous.

The man spits at their feet and then turns away, stalking back down the road with his arms swinging loosely at his sides.

Azula waits all of ten seconds to shove Zuko away viciously.

He grunts with the force of the blow to his chest, offence flickering over his features. Then he’s turning red again, his fists clenching at his sides.

“We’re going home. Now.”

“I am going home, yes.”

“No. You’re not going back. We’re going to our _new_ home with mom. She’s worried sick! You just disappeared on her and she feared the worst.”

“She should be afraid,” Azula answers sharply, “I’m gonna tell dad exactly where you two are as soon as I get back to the Fire Nation, and he’ll come and get you.”

“Azula keep your voice down!”

“No! I’m going home to the Fire Nation,” she shouts in defiance.

A shadow falls over them. Azula quails and then turns slowly to look at the figure shrouded in shadow by the sun directly over his head.

“Well, well, this is a surprise. Who would have thought I’d find my little niece and nephew out in the middle of nowhere. What are you two doing here?”

Azula would know that voice anywhere.

“Uncle!” Zuko rushes forward to wrap his arms around the old man. He’s barely recognizable, Azula thinks. His beard is full and thick, far too long, and he’s grown thick about the middle too. He isn’t the warrior who left home near to three years ago.

“Hello, little nephew. And princess Azula,” he looks at her with those discerning eyes, and Azula’s heart flutters as she looks away.

“What are you two doing out here all alone? Where are your parents?” Uncle sets down the patched, heavy looking, satchel he’d had slung over his shoulder, his free hand on Zuko’s back as he looks between them.

“Mom’s…On the other side of the village probably,” Zuko supplies for him. “We’re out here looking for _Azula_.” He shoots a pointed look at her.

Azula sticks her tongue out at her brother meanly.

“Hmm…I see. And your father?”

“Back at — back in Caldera,” Zuko answers. “Please uncle, if you come home with us then we’ll explain everything but…”

“Of course…Let’s find your mother and go back to where the three of you are staying. I’m certain there is much that I have missed.”

~

When they do find mother Azula is surprised that she doesn’t receive a slap. She stiffens as the woman throws her arms around her and squeezes tightly, burying her face in Azula’s loose hair before she stands and greets Iroh with surprise.

Azula finds herself satisfied for once to have her bowl of bland old Earth Kingdom food in her belly, curling up on the floor beside the table when she is done and staring blankly at the far wall that separates the small bedroom from the rest of the little house.

“I see,” Iroh says, setting his own bowl aside and looking grave. Mother has told him her story. “So my brother will be looking for you three. My father too, no doubt.”

“Perhaps, but he would likely have had to tell the Fire Lord what his plans had been, if he were to involve him…” Ursa glances at Azula. The little girl can feel the force of her gaze on the back of her head. “I’m at a loss…for what else to do.”

“No…you were right to leave, I think,” Iroh tells her calmly. “This way, my brother does not have direct access to the children, and has had his feet put to the burning coals…But that also makes him dangerous.”

“I know.”

“I have…made new ties recently, here in the Earth Kingdom, on my travels. I think it is very possible that I would be able to get you and the children to a place that is far safer for you than here. A place where my father and brother cannot reach.”

“But that would mean — “

“Yes…Ba Sing Se.”

Azula’s interest piques at the mention of the city. The same place that her uncle had been unable to break through to the heart of. The same place where his son had died.

“Oh, Iroh…” there’s a pause, and a sound like a sharp breath, and when Azula turns to look she sees that her uncle has begun to openly weep. She looks at him askance, confused and somewhat revolted by the display of emotion. Why are all of her family members so _emotional_?

Mother has reached across to him, her hand gentle against his wrist. Sympathy is written plainly on her soft features. Azula’s lip curls.

Zuko’s hand is at her shoulder a moment later, and when she turns to look at him he shakes his head, looking stonily forward at their mother and their uncle. Frown deepening, Azula settles back again, and tolerates her brother’s presence at her side as he, too, settles in.

It is a long while before Iroh can speak again.


End file.
